From his Academy Award-winning Braveheart to The Patriot, We Were Soldiers, The Passion of Christ and Apocalypto, Mel Gibson has always excelled at telling an epic story with compelling realism. In his first directorial effort in a decade, Gibson helms Hacksaw Ridge from a tightly crafted screenplay by Robert Schenkkan and Andrew Knight, bringing to dramatic life the true story of conscientious objector and Army medic Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield). When finding a way to live by his values meant refusing to bear arms in one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, Doss redefined what it meant to be a war hero.

With Hacksaw Ridge opening in theaters nationwide on November 4th and one of the most anticipated movies of the Oscar season, Collider had an opportunity recently to sit down with the filmmakers at a press conference in Los Angeles. The film features an exciting cast and a riveting story. Without giving away too much, we’ve put together a list of 15 things we learned from talking with Mel Gibson, Andrew Garfield, Vince Vaughn, Luke Bracey, Teresa Palmer, Robert Schenkkan, Andrew Knight, and producers David Permut and Bill Mechanic about their new film:

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1) Screenwriters Robert Schenkkan and Andrew Knight wanted to do justice to Desmond Doss and the other real life heroes portrayed in the film. Their screenplay hewed as close to the factual record as possible in portraying what transpired on Hacksaw Ridge in Okinawa during the bloodiest battle of World War II.

“We had, of course, the transcripts of the very excellent interviews that had been done with Desmond,” says Schenkkan. “Then, Andrew and I both dived deeply into the military records which are available. There’s a lot been written on the Okinawa campaign and the Medics. There is a lot of information available out there and we certainly took advantage of that because we wanted to be accurate. We wanted to pay tribute to what these individuals went through. It was very important to us.”

2) Director Mel Gibson wanted the war situation to be realistic because the battle for Okinawa resulted in the greatest loss of life in the South Pacific during World War II and the hellishness of war was pivotal to the story of Doss’s faith and heroism.

“The Japanese described it as a ‘steel rain of bullets and explosions’ and napalm was used,” says Gibson, “so I wanted to make it real. It also highlights what it means for a man with conviction and faith to go into a situation that is a hell on earth, that reduces most men to the level of animals. In the midst of that maelstrom, this man is able to hone his spirituality into something higher, above war, above religion, above everything. He goes in and performs acts of love in the midst of hell, which is the beauty of the story and it’s the pinnacle of heroism.”

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3) Gibson considers Hacksaw Ridge a story about love and faith rather than a war film and this is why Doss’s story inspired him to make the film. Up until he read the script for Hacksaw Ridge, Gibson had been more interested in directing projects that he’d developed himself.

“I see stories like this with a guy like Desmond whose faith is unshakeable and I’m inspired by them. Maybe I could take a leaf out of his book on some level. It’s not about religion so much as it’s about faith and conviction and standing by your beliefs and pure love which is at the heart of God, I think.”

4) Schenkkan and Knight view Doss as an extraordinary and unusual hero whose faith plays a pivotal role in his situation in the Army in 1944. While researching and writing the script, they focused on how Doss’s unshakeable belief that it was wrong to kill emerged in a war he nevertheless believed was just.

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“You can’t tell his story without speaking to the religious faith that undergirds Desmond’s life and was such an important part of his experience on Hacksaw Ridge,” explains Schenkkan. “He’s a vegetarian, and he doesn’t work on Saturday because that’s the day he worships. He doesn’t pick up a gun because he’s a pacifist. He’s not a man who’s incapable of compromising. It’s just that it must be of the highest order and that’s the choice he makes on that day.”

Knight agrees, “You could almost understand why the Army thought this wasn’t going to work. What’s so extraordinary is somehow he made it work. One of the things I love about the film, which Robert had brought from the start, is it’s fairly languid to start with. It could almost be a 40s or a 50s film with Jimmy Stewart or Gary Cooper. What it does is one, allow you to understand the characters, but two, to lull you into a world and then shock you with a modern sensibility about war. Then Mel puts you right in the middle of horror. You get what that world was like then.”

5) Andrew Garfield found Schenkkan and Knight’s script absolutely compelling and wanted to go the extra mile to capture the essence of Doss’s character and honor his life. For him, making the film became somewhat of a spiritual journey.

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“It’s very rare you read a script that as an actor, you go, ‘Oh God, I have to do this.’ It’s a horrible feeling to have the longing to tell a story be greater than the doubt about if I can do it or not. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to read everything. There was a particularly profound moment where I went to Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is where Desmond eventually retired and passed away. I went onto his old property, went into his old woodshed, handled his tools, and walked around the lake that he would walk around. I spent a day there just praying and asking, ‘Just guide me through this if you can hear me. Tell me what to do, tell me how to move, tell me how to speak, tell me how to behave, and I’ll do whatever you say.’ There was a strange, mysterious spirituality going on around the making of this film.”

6) Australian actor Luke Bracey plays Smitty Ryker, the natural leader of Doss’s company whose initial mistrust of Doss evolves into deep respect. His reaction the first time he saw the battlefield set was intense. He found Gibson’s direction crucial in helping him portray the fear and the truth in the battle scenes.

“The production designers and everyone on the crew demonstrated such an amazing job creating a hell-like landscape in the back of Sydney. The first time we saw the battlefield as actors was the first time we go over the top on that rope, and you couldn’t help but be struck by this absolute devastation. At one point I was going, ‘How could they? I can’t even imagine what they went through.’ Then I’d say, ‘Wait a minute, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do.’ It helps that everyone involved in the filming of those battle scenes was someone poignant and so ready to tell the most truthful story, from Mel all the way down. There’s also the melding of that fear and that truth and making sure it’s clear. Mel was instrumental in helping us portray the truth, but also technically as well to make sure that it was as clear as possible.”

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7) Vince Vaughn, who plays Drill Sergeant Howell of Company B, was impressed with Gibson’s innate sense of organization during a complicated shoot and how he made sure that the actors felt relaxed and comfortable yet connected to the moment.

“It was always about bringing the right level of intensity on each take. Seeing Mel in that environment visually, what he brought to it, was just incredible. Moreover, the organization, it’s almost like catching butterflies. You have a bunch of people moving around. Some are extras. The communication level there is very difficult with the amount of people and yet there are very specific actions that you’re having to track. For Mel, it’s a much bigger jigsaw. As an actor in it, I was impressed watching him be a conductor for all these moving parts and organizing. These sequences were pretty intricate. You’d have hundreds of people having to move and do things at a certain moment. Even in the smaller decisions, there were bags being thrown or things that needed to be executed along with explosions. Mel was tremendous at making you feel relaxed enough and comfortable within it to not overthink it, but at the same time organize it all so that it was beautiful ultimately as it came together.”

8) Vaughn loved how the screenwriters wrote his character and set up the boot camp training sequence. He found that Gibson’s directing style encouraged him to be authentic in a role that required him to tread a fine line between being a really hard guy and a compassionate guy.

“It was terrific writing. In that moment, you’re obviously trying to do all the things that an actor does to come to that feeling as if you’re in it, and then you’re listening. We had such great lines within that. Mel is such a good actor. I learned so much, even in dramatic pieces, to find the levity and not be so diehard and allow things to be authentic by being vulnerable at times. He had a lot of great ideas, such as ‘Walk by this guy. Something catches your eye. You would assume that it would be the naked guy, but it’s not.’ He added a lot of visual ideas that brought another layer to it that was a lot of fun. Doing the research that I did on the drill sergeant, especially with it being a battle time, it’s important that you’re trying to prepare people for life and death situations. You have to put them through a very vigorous test physically, emotionally and mentally because their life and the people around them will depend on how they respond in those moments. There’s no perfect training. On the other side of that, there’s a love, a bond, and a friendship having survived it. Drill sergeants at their best become a parent. These guys feel like your children. You’re responsible for their lives. You take that very seriously. Underneath it, there’s a deep love, but there’s an urgency to keep them alive as well.”

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9) Bracey enjoyed his boot camp training experience with Jon Iles and the intense physical preparation it required. It helped him bond with his fellow actors which was important given the heightened kind of story they were telling.

“With boot camp, we had about a week where we crammed from 9:00 o’clock in the morning until 5:00 o’clock in the afternoon with a really great guy, Jon Iles. It was amazing. He’s done a lot of work on films and he’s still an active member of the Special Forces in Australia. It was necessarily doing everything in boot camp, but also knowing what we needed to know and drilling that in. It helps when every single person, every bloke involved in that unit, is all on the same team. Everyone was completely committed, and that makes it very easy to learn something and become closer, even in that week that we had to do it. It was everyone cramming for a test and that idea. Everyone did their homework and showed up to class ready to learn. We were all excited about doing it to the best of our ability.”

10) Gibson did not have a specific role in the film, but he did fill in for Hugo Weaving in a scene with Garfield when Weaving could not be there because of a scheduling conflict. The filmmakers green screened Weaving in later.

“I was in it,” says Gibson. “My shadow is in it. Also, my arm is in it. This is a true story. I said, ‘Hugo, come do this film,’ and he said, ‘Oh, okay.’ Then, he changed his mind, and I’m like, ‘Oh no.’ The scheduling was such that he couldn’t do the scene in the courtroom, so I did it -- my hand and my shadow. We green screened him in later. We had to green screen him in because he wasn’t actually there, but he is now.”

Garfield adds, “I wasn’t actually opposite Hugo in that scene. I was acting opposite Mel in his jeans and T-shirt off camera. We were all trying to convince him to put the whole bloody costume on but we didn’t have that power. Thank God, Hugo came in.”

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11) Gibson and producer Bill Mechanic revealed why the degree of difficulty was greater shooting the battle scenes in Hacksaw Ridge than those in Braveheart and what the budget constraints are like today making a film this size compared to 20 years ago.

“Sometimes you get it in the hand-to-hand stuff,” explains Gibson, “but Medieval conflict is different. You’re hitting each other with blunt objects in close-ups. This had bombs and bullets. It’s a different thing, and the degree of difficulty goes way up, believe me. I had about 25 percent less than the budget of Braveheart and half the time. That’s 20 years ago. The nature and the character of making films is different now. This is an independent film. It was 59 days which is a killer. We ended up squeezing another couple days out of it, like maybe 60 or 61. It looks pretty good for what we made it for. About $40 million is what it ended up being. It looks like $100 million to me.”

Mechanic adds, “We had 45 days of first unit so it’s actually harder. We were constrained by budget. Forty-five days of principal photography is ridiculous for a movie this size. To me, we are in the worst of times in the movie business in that the movies are all pre-fab houses and all anybody cares about is if there’s a sequel and everything else is thrown away. When you’re making a movie with scale, you can make really small movies, but you can’t make those middle level pictures.”

12) Teresa Palmer plays Dorothy, the strong woman behind Desmond Doss whose faith in him was unwavering. She found the role challenging and a positive experience. Portraying the love and romance between them gave her a lot to do, but she had a great acting partner.

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Image via Lionsgate

“Firstly, just to be part of a film that I knew had the ability to effect positive change in the world was such a blessing in and of itself. Then, to portray this woman who’s a real woman with an incredible spirit to her. She’s very light, she’s very vulnerable, she’s strong, and she does stand by her convictions. There was so much to do with her. My focus was bringing to life this love, this romance between these two people. I’d heard so many stories about their love and how fierce and committed it was. There was a lot of self-imposed pressure to play her in a way that did this story justice. It was challenging in many ways, but I got into a flow with Andrew and it became this really organic dance between us. We found a wonderful way of being with each other and it just grew from there.”

Garfield acknowledges his talented co-star, “Teresa has this access to embodying unconditional love. It’s a rare thing in a human being and especially rare to capture on film. In every moment with Teresa playing this part, I felt like I could do no wrong as a man, as a husband, as a terrible kisser. It didn’t matter. The scene which I think she so profoundly nails is in the prison when she comes to visit Desmond. She fills that small room with love that’s threatening to break down those stone walls. That was my experience of being in that scene with her. She poured forth that love from every pore.”

13) Producers Permut and Mechanic described the film’s long journey to the big screen, how they found the story and discovered they had been preceded by Hal Wallace, Darryl Zanuck, and Audie Murphy, and the challenges of financing the early development of the project.

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Permut explains, “Joe Kramer, a stunt coordinator who had worked with me on a number of films I produced, mentioned Desmond’s name to me for the first time 16 years ago. He knew a friend who had known Desmond who came into my office and they told me the story of Desmond Doss. It was one of the most heroic, miraculous stories I’ve ever heard. It sounded like it was made up. I knew history quite well and I’d never heard of Desmond Doss. I found out that I wasn’t the first person interested in telling Desmond’s story. I was preceded by Hal Wallace, the legendary producer, by Darryl Zanuck, and Audie Murphy who had all met with Desmond Doss. Desmond had Hollywood at his doorstep but he had no real interest in exploiting his story. He was a very modest, humble man who never considered himself a hero. I thought about going to a number of places to finance the early development of the project and had a couple of conversations with a few people. I was fortunate enough that I brought it to Bill who had just left Fox and started his company, and Bill really responded. We got involved in the very early stages of development with Terry Benedict who had the rights. When Mel became involved two years ago, that’s when we started to gear up finally for production after all those years.”

Mechanic elaborates, “I licensed the rights from Terry and the Seventh-day Adventist Church. We had a very broad agreement which is we would not do anything that would contradict Doss’s beliefs and a license to tell the story the way it should be. You had to do this independently because you didn’t want the religion to be more or less. You wanted to tell the story the way it should be told. The structure that we decided with Robert is very unusual. It’s not a three-act structure. It’s pretty much a two-act structure in that you spend the time meeting people and then you’re dropped into battle. His script was good enough that it kept us alive for 10 or 11 years. It really wasn’t development hell. There were only three writers on the project. It was more the financiers. World War II wasn’t in vogue. Religion was an issue in the picture. And there was the two-act structure.”

14) Mechanic always felt Braveheart and Hacksaw Ridge shared similar heroes at their core, even though one was violent and the other was non-violent and their journeys were different. In 2002 and again in 2010, he took the project to Gibson because he always believed he was the right director for the project.

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“When I was running Fox, we financed Braveheart. When I first met with Mel, Braveheart was stuck in the same kind of limbo. People didn’t want to make it. Who cares about Scottish freedom and a guy in a kilt? When I sat down with Mel that first time, he had watched every battle scene in every movie ever made and took me through the movie. ‘This is how we’re going to do it.’ He’s better at that, so it was an easy movie for me to get behind. I always felt this movie was a different form of Braveheart. I used to pitch it that way. William Wallace and Desmond Doss are in some ways very similar men. They were two men who were prepared to die for what they believed in. Hacksaw Ridge is a movie about faith. With Mel, and who he is as a person, and the battle stuff, there was nobody else. I’ve never gone to the same director and had them reject me twice and then go back a third time. That’s either a glutton for punishment or everything worked out perfectly.”

15) Gibson and Schenkkan believe there are lessons that people living today in this divisive political era can learn from a hero like Desmond Doss who brings back our faith in humanity.

“Real superheroes don’t wear spandex tights,” Gibson states. “What Desmond shows and what I find the most inspiring is he managed to transcend and get above the war. We’ve always had it. We always will have it. He’s just gone way above it in the midst of it and shown us another way to love. It’s a love story and that’s a vital message now. The world is in a pretty bad way. It’s been this bad before. It’s going to get that bad again. We seem to learn our lessons. It stings like a bitch. We behave for 20 or 30 years and then we’re back at it again. It’s like history regurgitates itself. This is hopefully a little word or a reminder about that and a little look at the brutality and the viciousness of it. I want you to feel appalled by it. But I want to accentuate the other side of it, too, and in the midst of it, some good can be extracted.”

Schenkkan adds, “Desmond models an idea of masculinity that I think is very, very important, particularly in the time of Trump. Desmond’s masculinity is not about aggression. It’s not about domination. It’s not about selfishness. It’s the antithesis of that. It’s about love. It’s about self-sacrifice. I can’t think of a more important message in this political era than the message of Desmond Doss.”

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